Tag Archives: mike

Brian and I went to a StarCityGames Invitational Qualifier last weekend (02-15-2014). You heard Brian talk about his deck on Episode 312 (hopefully his decklist will make it to the site soon enough), but my own deck was just casually mentioned. Since I ended up making Top 8, Chewie had me write up the decklist and some quick comments to highlight a few recent changes, important cards, and how I did at the event. You can find those comments at the bottom of the decklist, given below:

Considering the fact you’re reading about Magic: The Gathering on the internet, you’re probably already aware of a very interesting bit of news about the upcoming M14 Core Set. The storied tribe of Slivers is back in the game with brand new cards, an updated design philosophy, and revamped art and style guidelines. As with any New Thing referencing an Old Thing the news has inspired tons of conversation since first being announced, and it’s easy to find vivid and vocal opinions across the entire spectrum, from “Hooray, Slivers forever!” to “BOOO! LAME!”

Untold thousands of years ago, Chewie talked me into filming a marathon session of videos for the CMDR Decks channel, and we sent them over to be placed in the queue for future release. Presumably you’ve already seen Dakkon Blackblade, Fumiko the Lowblood, and Scion of the Ur-Dragon (check them out, if not), but this one is the long-lost final episode from that session: The Mimeoplasm. Note that I go and make tweaks to my decks fairly often, and this video has been in the can for a while, so several details just aren’t accurate anymore. You can look it up on TappedOut to see the up-to-the-minute current list. As always, let me know what you think in the comments here, or in the comments section on YouTube if you feel so inclined. To be honest, there’s no guarantee I’ll read the YouTube comments, as I do my best to avoid reading any YouTube comments as a general rule (that stuff will rot your brain). Recording all these videos was a lot of fun, and I want to thank Uriah Oxford (@CMDRDecks) and Gathering Magic for featuring them on the CMDR Decks channel.

Several months ago, Chewie talked me into filming a marathon session of videos for the CMDR Decks channel, and we sent them over to be placed in the queue for future release. Presumably you’ve already seen the Dakkon Blackbladevideo and the Fumiko the Lowbloodvideo (check them out, if not), but this one is the very first Commander deck I ever built: my Scion of the Ur-Dragon deck. Note that I go and make tweaks to my decks fairly often, especially if I get to thinking about them for some reason, so some of the details aren’t really accurate anymore. You can look it up on TappedOut to see the up-to-the-minute current list. As always, let me know what you think in the comments here, or in the comments section on YouTube if you feel so inclined. To be honest, there’s no guarantee I’ll read the YouTube comments, as I do my best to avoid reading any YouTube comments as a general rule (that stuff will rot your brain). Recording all these videos was a lot of fun, and I want to thank Uriah Oxford (@CMDRDecks) and Gathering Magic for featuring them on the CMDR Decks channel.

Hey look, another draft video with an extremely old set! If you’ve watched these before, you know the story. Mike had more money than he had sense, and ended up buying unopened boxes of some seriously old Magic sets. What do you do with unopened boxes of seriously old Magic sets? Why, you stream two-man Winchester Drafts of them! Don’t let’s be silly!

But this time, we’re drafting the dreaded Fallen Empires. The first tribal set! Of course, half of those tribes are almost extinct nowadays, but we won’t hold it against them. Homarids just needed to die, after all. Storyline-wise, this set was all about each color handling its own internal conflict, rather than pitting the colors against each other. There were two warring factions in each color, giving the set a bizarre disconnected feel (in my opinion, anyway).

Now for some tidbits of interest. Fallen Empires was MASSIVELY overprinted. Seriously, these things were everywhere. And they still are! It’s a good thing they didn’t come with gum like old baseball cards, or else there would have a serious chance of having to deal with mutated oozes. It was also the last time the tilted T was used to indicate tapping (that nifty little curved arrow thing showed up in the next set). And if you look very carefully at the mana symbols on these cards compared to sets that came after, you’ll see that this is the last set with the “original” ones. It’s easiest to tell on the white symbol.